Home track advantage

The Del Norte High School track and field team is hoping to replace its hurdles and race timing system with newer models, in part to host regular-season or postseason track meets. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson

On May 10, Del Norte High School track and field coach Samuel Escobar appeared before the School Board.

Escobar opened by praising his athletes, coaches, fundraisers and other supporters within the community, many of whom were in attendance. Shortly thereafter, he got down to the greater purpose of his appearance.

He related the story of Humboldt-Del Norte League officials approaching Del Norte High about hosting the North Coast Section/Les Schwab Redwood Empire Meet, the regional stepping-stone before the North Coast Section Meet of Champions.

“Every so often, the league itself has an opportunity to host Redwood
Empire,” Escobar told the board. “Our facility is one of the best
equipped for it, but we turned it down. ”

One worry, Escobar acknowledged, was the inability to find the number
of volunteers necessary to put on a large track meet. Two others were
more material.

The first concern was a collection of hurdles and a place to put them.

“We probably need about 80 hurdles in order to run a good hurdle
event. Right now, we have 74 because the weather beats on them (and)
people play with them,”âEscobar said. “Right now they get stored under
the bleachers — not the ideal place for them.

“The other need we have is some sort of timing system that is not so
antiquated as what we currently have. The lack of a good timing system
is what kept our school this year from hosting the Redwood Empire Meet.”

“My level of interest (in hosting the Redwood Empire meet) was high.
Economically, it’s a great thing for Crescent City,”âFugate said.
“Anytime you can host an event, you’re always thinking, economically
speaking, that a few dollars stay in town.”

For Warrior athletes and coaches, the money saved from home contests
goes a long way at a time when high school athletic budgets are severely
crimped.

“For local athletes, it eliminates the travel time to go someplace,
the overnight lodging and the travel expenses,”âEscobar said. “The fact
that they’re around peers, they have a big support system (around) —
it’s a friendly environment.”

Not to mention, Escobar added, that out-of-area athletes could stand to benefit from the road trip.

“When kids come up here, they have no clue there’s something north of Santa Rosa,”âhe said.

Del Norte High School last hosted the Redwood Empire meet in 2007;
then Warrior track and field coach Scott Lindsay was the meet director.

“If you would’ve seen Scott, he was going from one thing to another
to another to another,”âsaid Escobar, who was an assistant coach under
Lindsay that season. “You’re basically giving up the coaching of your
kids.”

Spreading oneself too thin was an initial hang-up for Escobar, who
recently completed his first season as Del Norte’s head coach. Finding
and training volunteers to conduct 16 separate events — some going on
simultaneously — poses a challenge as well.

Hurdles cost $125 to $400 per unit, depending upon certain features.
The Warriors’ hurdles are exposed to moisture, thereby more susceptible
to rust, in their current storage situation under the bleachers; that
need, however, is not as pressing as that of a timing system.

Sufficient and accurate timing systems range from $5,000 to $20,000; a
timing system at the upper end of the scale would be suitable at
national or international track meets.

Fugate, who will abdicate the athletic director position in July, is
conditionally in favor of purchasing a timing system when the money can
be made available or received through donors.

“I’d love to see that,”âhe said. “It puts us in a place where times
have some pretty big meaning. We can advocate, ‘Hey, we’re really set up
now.’”

The Warriors hosted a Humboldt-Del Norte League track meet on March
28 and a few middle-school track meets for this season. Escobar and
Fugate see the upgrades as a way toward attracting more track meets with
more out-of-town guests. The ancillary benefits of these meets would,
in theory, be passed along to local businesses, giving them a few more
customers in lean times.

It is improbable that Del Norte would host a North Coast Section Meet
of Champions track meet, but the school could garner consideration over
time. “For the Meet of Champions there is a track management committee
that reviews the site and our needs for that particular meet and we make
that determination in the fall for each year,” North Coast Section
Associate Commissioner Karen Smith said in an e-mail.

The message is simple for other Warrior sports teams hoping to host
postseason games:âBe good enough to do so. Beginning in 2012–13, playoff
games and matches beyond the first round will be hosted by the school
with the higher playoff seed, according to Smith.

Playoff sites must meet certain criteria to host games and matches,
as outlined in the NCS bylaws. Considerations include adequate parking
and restroom facilities, minimum seating capacity, a public address
system and adequate changing facilities for the home and visiting teams.

Fugate has kept an informal to-do list of various athletic projects,
none of which have a timetable at this juncture, he said. Among
them:âExpanding the concession area and restrooms at Mike Whalen Field,
and fixing or replacing the scoreboards at the baseball and softball
diamonds.

Del Norte had a successful track season this spring, sending six
athletes to the NCSâMeet of Champions and thrower Morgan Laney to the
California Interscholastic Federation State Track Meet. (Laney finished
12th in the shot put.)

“(Escobar and the assistant coaches)âwent way beyond the regular
season,”âFugate said. “They gave up weekend after weekend, moving up the
ranks.”

What would the season have looked like if the Warriors had a second home meet on the schedule?

Athletic programs, like athletes, hold aspirations of their own.

Reach Robert Husseman at
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